XO Keeps Customers Coming Back with Identity-based Services

Many marketing agencies today offer e-commerce and lead generation services. What makes XO stand out in a crowded field of competitors is its data-first approach. The agency specializes in big data analytics for boutique companies looking to start small and scale big. And that’s precisely the service they provide. They complement their unique processes with in-house technology and data that ranges from data warehouse systems to artificial intelligence-like social analytics engines. That’s how the company successfully manages more than 10 million in ad dollars.

And as part of its winning data-driven formula, XO takes advantage of customer intelligence using identity resolution. The founder and CEO, George Georgallides, has helped propel the agency’s profitability by placing a premium on delivering customers the ability to build data-driven personas, enriched leads, targeted advertising and more.

“We use more data so, businesses understand what their ideal customer looks like,” said Georgallides. “Mass marketing and ‘spray and pray’ advertising are a thing of the past.”

A Fast, Flexible Agency for the Ages

XO was conceived as an agency that empowers brands to build sustainable and scalable digital ecosystems. The company focuses on delivering actionable insights to carry out strategic marketing. It also helps companies scale as they experience growth. For instance, one hospitality/entertainment client started by providing entertainment to 25 venues. With data-driven marketing and sophisticated lead capture and analysis, they were able to grow to more than 100 venues.

XO wanted to help its customers build business relationships with their clients using a holistic view that stretched across channels. The company recognized that traditional data fell short building campaigns that developed one-to-one relationships, primarily since there was always new data, new content, and new channels used by its customers. In chasing an omnichannel customer view, businesses get a static data view, which results in a limited customer view based on channel and system boundaries, not on prospects and dynamic opportunities.

XO customer intelligence opportunities:

Managing large volumes of complex customer data

Updating information consistently in real-time

Avoiding missed marketing opportunities

Jeopardizing sales with inaccurate persona data

Resolving data issues, including customer information consistency

After researching data enrichment, XO came across identity resolution to transform pieces of channel data into a complete profile. It would enable the agency to provide its customers with a holistic customer view to facilitate precise advertising, persona creation, email campaigns, event marketing, and more.

Crossing the Customer Chasm with Identity Resolution

XO partnered with FullContact to provide value-added services to customers. It uses identity resolution to create a complete view of a person. Merging client marketing and sales databases, XO can enrich client contacts. It allows the brands they serve—whether in real estate, hospitality, or e-commerce—to understand target audiences better and build relationships faster.

Using open, trusted, and secure data built from identity resolution, XO can go beyond profession, geography, family size, interests and more to create more personal paths to purchase.

From a lead generation standpoint, companies can build more accurate personas if they take advantage of a wealth of dynamic, continuously evolving social sources. XO uses identity resolution to mine these communities and develop accurate personas. For a real estate client, four personas were developed based on data from FullContact data.

XO observed the client’s sales team for two weeks, studying the different personas they previously used. They realized that the personas were based on static data and untested hypotheses. They took existing data, which mostly included variables such as profession and family size, added to it using identity resolution, and returned up-to-date personas that included more detail. The enhanced personas set the stage for improving a number of activities.

Display advertising

Today, thanks to low costs and high flexibility nature of display ads, businesses have the ability to reach vast cohorts of potential targets, and travel far, traversing millions of websites. It allows brands of all sizes, and with limited budgets, to match their ads up to sites and apps based on customer keywords or targeting preferences. The problem is that over time, because of ubiquitous use, its effectiveness has declined.

Instead of simple display advertising that messages to prospects everywhere, ads can be delivered that speak to customer behavior, interests, and demographics that are culled with identity resolution.

Sales prospecting

XO has worked with clients to take leads entering the funnel, group them into appropriate buckets using improved personas, and match leads to sales teams with higher efficiency. Sales staff can know exactly what prospects to focus on first, where to begin in the process, and how to carry out the conversation to remain relevant until the deal is closed.

“The customer intelligence provides more than just giving a telephone number to sales, but some emotional connection points to connect,” said Georgallides.

Email marketing

After creating accurate personas and advertisements, XO helps clients maximize customer data investments by creating personalized email communication that resonates with intended audiences. Rather than sending endless emails that lack specificity and connection with people, XO carefully dissects who customers are and then enables dynamic messaging at all stages of engagement.

XO created an open, trusted, human-to-human contact profile that cuts through the white noise of customer data to accurately understand and address marketing needs. Although data acquisition and analytics remains a core tenant to XO, they augment their services with identity resolution to build an accurate picture of organizations who specialize in delivering personalized products and services.

XO filled in the contact data gaps, improving the quality of its client data by augmenting, consolidating and cleansing it to remove inaccuracies. Instead of large budget spends on third-party data that provides little-to-no guarantee of accuracy, XO supplies the missing pieces that CRM and marketing systems alone lack.

“As a marketing agency, we care about data,” said Georgallides. “The more data you get from your ideal customer without having to ask them, the better it is to set up high-performing campaigns. While systems may provide you with enough information to function, filling in the customer data gaps with identity resolution allows you to differentiate from your competitors.”